Poland Trip Midreshet Lindenbaum 2013: September 2013

A Musical Interlude

On the bus ride to Bialystok, we watched "The Pianist." It was definitely a refreshing change from yesterday's dive into Hitler's dirty past. It told the story of a Jewish pianists struggle in German-occupied Warsaw. At the end of the movie, his unlikely hero takes the form of a German officer. Since this was based off a true story, it's refreshing to know that not all of the Nazis were utter monsters, especial after a day like today.

Everlasting Stone

Lodz, Poland

Next we made our way to the Jewish Cemetery, where many Jews from the ghetto were buried and that is still functional today. The gravestones were extravagant. I have never seen so much marble or mausoleums in any Jewish cemetery. It was beautiful. We also visited the graves of four Polish Jews who were a part of Bnei Akiva and were murdered after the war by Poles while transporting supplies. We sang the B"A anthem together and it was really inspiring.

Entrance to the Cemetery

Grave of Lodz Cheif Rabbi Maizel

Extravagant Gravestones

Trapped: Life in the Lodz Ghetto

Lodz, Poland

We stopped by the train station from which members of the Lodz Ghetto were transported to Chelmno and Auschwitz-Birkenau. We learned about the devastating of Chaim Rokovsky regarding the children and elderly of the Ghetto (he chose to deport the children to their deaths in order to save the majority population of the Ghetto). We entered the cattle cars and were chilled to the bone by the shadows of the past that surrounded us. It was eerie. We walked along the tracks down the memorial to the Lodz Ghetto, which organized the major events of the Ghetto's history. The exit was a chimney from a crematoria that had the words "lo tirtzach" written above it.

Cattle cars used to transport Jews of Lodz

A view into the cattle car

Views from Within the tunnel (the years record the events in the Ghetto's history)

Crematoria Chimeny Exit

The Horrors of Chelmno

Chelmno, Death Camp

The entire camp consists of a building no bigger than Lindenbaum. It was one of the first death camps to be put into action. The camp had a huge castle in the front where the transport of Jews would undress. They were then chased into the back of the castle into trucks. They were gassed within those trucks by using the exhaust pipes. The entire camp is only known about through escapees because the Nazis destroyed the camp and destroyed all the evidence. Twice. And they did a good job of it because when we first arrived I didn't even realize where I was standing. I thought we were just sitting in a courtyard until Rav Brown had me read a request to make the trunks of the car smaller so they won't have to use more carbon monoxide to "process the units" (kill the Jews) and need sewer holes built into them to "dispose of the solid waste" (get rid of the corpses).

Ruins of Chelmno Castle

Map of original Chelmno Castle

Church used to keep imprisoned Jews overnight

The second part of the camp really got to me. You walk through a huge gate into a field where there were 3 long rows. Graves. Mass graves. Like the ones I've seen in pictures. We held a tekes for all of the people whose names were lost because of the Nazis. Then we walked along the graves where a lot if polish cities erected their own monuments in honor of the memory. This is all while walking along the remnants of a crematoria and bone grinder. When I got to the final wall, I couldn't believe my eyes. There were two plaques next to each other, and they had the names Ya'akobovitz and Grossman written on them. My families, both sides, had died in Chelmno. The realization shook me. I lit two yortzeit candles for these lost relatives I had never known.

Chelmno Memorial

Views of the three Mass Graves

Memorials by individual Polish towns

Ruins of Crematoria Wall (memorial)

The plaques with my great-grandparents family names

The Next Generation

Footsteps and Shadows

Wygoda Forest, Poland

"The blood of your brother cries out to me from the ground." Bereshit

I walked the forest path that many confused Jewish families had walked over sixty years ago. The difference: I did so by my eon will and I knew what waited for me at the end of the road. This clearing was one of the first places that a mass killing had occurred in Poland. As we walked up the path we were given a story to read, an account of the atrocities that had occurred here. When I finished I looked up and was taken aback by the huge monument there to commemorate this loss. The Jews of a nearby town were brought in the middle of the night, told the strip down, and were thrown into a huge pit. Many suffocated. Those who lived were burned alive when boiling water that was poured into the limestone pit. Rav Brown told us that that was one of the first killings, and thereby not systematic enough for the Nazis, yimach shemam. It was too messy, too unorganized. They didn't yet know how to kill and this was one of their first efforts, but it wasn't effective enough. The death of an entire town of Polish Jews was. not. effective. enough. Fury raged through me. How dare they belittle their murder. How dare they deem the loss of Jewish life as a murder that could have been carried out better. As we stopped to say tehilim for these tehorim by the monument erected for them, anguish coursed through my veins. So many had died here, but it was only the beginning. As I walked back after placing a rock on the gravestone, I was almost paralyzed with shock. I realized that I was making a trip that none of these Jews ever made. I had never been so ashamed of myself, in my boots, sweater, coat, hand and foot warmers, hat, gloves, scarf. I was so privileged, so lucky, and I had never even given it a second thought. I had never truly tasted from tragedy, and this realization pierced through me as my heart reached out towards my brethren who would never walk back down the forest path with me.

Memorial for the victims of the Wygoda Forest Massacre

The Life and Lies of Adolf Hitler

Konin, Poland

During the bus ride here we watched a two part movie entitled "Hitler: The Rise of Evil." It told of Hitler's personal and political history leading up to 1934. The last bits of the movie then listed the rest of the events leading up to the outbreak of the war and the crimes against humanity that he committed until his suicide. The acting was superb and the movie really gave me an insight into the monster who orchestrated the horrifying events of the Holocaust and how he came to power. One quote appeared on the screen both before and after the movie. It read, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." This is a quote I am very familiar with but I felt a troubling aspect to it. In the movie, and man named Fritz worked tirelessly to expose Hitler as the maniac he was. Fritz was a writer, and used all of the tools as his disposal to be the voice of reason and truth until he was murdered in Dachau. He was a good man who tried to do something, but in the end his efforts were fruitless. Fritz's failure contradicts the words of the quote, for a good man did try to do some thing! The answer to this paradox is not a satisfying one, but was the only one that made some sort of sense to me. Good MEN (and women) must take action, and a single voice was not enough to overpower the Nazis or their ruthless leader. This goes against everything I've ever learned, for my mentors have always said one voice can change everything. I expected Poland to be a difficult experience, but I can't deal with these unanswerable questions.

Synogague or Cinema?

Monday, September 30

Konin, Poland

We woke up this morning to the beautiful Polish sunrise with the bittersweet realization that we would be awake for every one this week. We were told that we would be davening in a shul this morning. However, we were all very perplexed when we entered a movie theater this morning. I stood immobilized when I put the pieces together. This was a shul. After the Holocaust, Polish Jewry all but eradicated and this was the remainder. Rav Brown also gave us a speech on the Polish occupation up until 1942, and explained the dire conditions.

Prague

What a city. There is so much richness and culture here. We got off the plane and drove through a beautiful suburbian landscape to get to the heart of the city. There we visited many Shuls in the Old Jewish Town of Prague and also visited the old cemetery. We finished the afternoon with a delicious lunch at the Chabad here and then it's back on the bus for an 8 hour ride to Konin, Poland!

Residential House in Suburbian Prague